Cooler weather and some snow

Skiweather.eu

The meteorological winter is coming to an end, and with it the passive high which determined the Alpine weather. Wednesday was the last day of spring-like conditions. The weather in the Alps is about to change, with the first fronts arriving in the western Alps later on Thursday. This storm will mostly affect the northwestern Alps, bringing snow on Thursday night and Friday morning. It will weaken as it moves east across Austria though, and most of the southern Alps will remain dry.

On Thursday afternoon clouds move into the western Alpine region. Later in the night into Friday, when the temperatures drop, it will eventually rain and snow. Initially, the snow line is still high (around 1900 meters). It drops to 1400 meters later and will end around 1100 meters in the northwest and 800 meters in the northeast of the Alps on Saturday. Unfortunately, most of the precipitation will fall early on and in the form as rain. The expected snow fall is between 5 and 20cm. In the western part and on higher elevation a bit more (towards 50cm). Saturday starts fresh, but in the course of Saturday it gets warm again fast and especially Sunday is too warm again for the time of the year. The freezing level goes back to 2000 meters during the weekend.

After the weekend, fronts and intermediate air pressure increases provide a changeable weather. Snowfall and intermediate clearances alternate with each other at a fairly rapid pace. The snowfall border also fluctuates a lot. In the course of Monday afternoon and evening, the clouds will rise again from the west and soon the first precipitation will follow. Around Tuesday snow settles at valley level.

As it looks now, the south side will also be affected by snowfall next week.